I've just made the transition and I'm looking for others just starting out in the juice biz, to see if we can exchange ideas.
Hey. I have been considering it for a long time now. I sell to guys at work and have reached a point where the demand exceeds the time I have to mix, so the logical step I feel like would be to produce in quantity and get it in a few local b&m's. Feel free to pm me
I'm more looking for some streamlines.
I have a website, and have some success selling there.
I have a bunch of friends and that buy from me exclusively. (its that good!)
These are my struggles so far:
- Label solutions
- Social Media Marketing - gaining followers, what to post Driving people to review sites, and reviews on my site
- Streamlining supply ordering. I'm not big enough to keep 55 gallons of VG around, or gallon of flavoring. I usually have 40-50 orders of each flavor on hand ready to mix. I've got an inventory list and pars set, that update when I enter my weekly sales in, but I'm wondering if I'm missing an opportunity here.
I've been mixing and selling juice for about two years now, and here are some pointers on gaining visibility in the community.
Label Solutions Buying large rolls of preprinted labels with an empty MG number that you can write in, or buy all your labels in each mg. Have someone design your labels, and look for interesting bottle solutions (Vape community is all about marketing)
Gaining followers Marketing on social media for eliquid comes in to main forms, Instagram and facebook. My local area has a large buy/sell group for ecig related material, I had extremely good luck in these communities. When it comes to Facebook and Instagram, if you want it to be worth your while, PAY for the adspace. Facebook has a built in option for this while Instagram you can generally buy posts from vape related pages. Your juice could be complete shit, but if you advertise correctly, you'll form a regular customer base.
Streamlining Mix flavor bases and keep vg/pg, and nic handy. My parents were really unhappy with the smell from mixing/vaping so I got a nice clean storage unit and mixed there under more sanitary conditions.
These strategies worked for me, and after a year in highschool and one in college selling eliquid, I just bought my second car :)
Thank you for taking the time out to information-share.
I am against label solutions like this. My reasoning is I think writing in the information is tacky, and I like the clean printed look. Right now, I'm offering any nic amount 1-12 including half-steps, so printing labels for this could get costly.
I have a high-end color laser printer. Printing sticker style is fine but any liquid destroys the ink. I'm hoping for a better solution that I can achieve in my home-office.
I'm all for paying to play on Facebook and instagram, but I need reach first, then ads.
I already pre-mix 120ml flavor concentrates, so I just custom mix the nic/vg/pg to order. I think my system is effective, but I also am open to other ideas of how to optimize.
Really good post and you seem level headed. I am not asking for recipes but more about how you go about mixing your best liquids, did you start tweaking clones or did you just go with what you wanted to do? I have only made one liquid that people really like and have sold some bottles for cheap. I am no where near being able to make a profit, I just really love doing this shit. It is true that the vaping community is ALL about marketing.
At this point now. A B&M has asked to sell it in their shop. I solved the labeling issue with hiring a graphic designer. The ONLY hurdle that is killing me is liability insurance.
The insurance is killer on the wallet!
I do graphic design as a hobby, so creating logo's labels and all of that wasn't an issue and is done. It's the physical label printing, that won't be destroyed upon liquid touching it that is the issue. My method now works but is slow.
[^(Mouseover to view the metric conversion for this comment)](#55 US gallons = 208.2 L "55 US gallons = 208.2 L Post feedback in /r/ToMetric")
I went from DIY, to selling on reddit, to launching a line, and now another.
Label solutions - I use Odesk for graphic design jobs. I go to someone there for a logo. An owner of a shop I sell to does graphic work and he creates the label graphic from the logo. Luckily a local shop here offered label printing service, 20 cents a label so I went through him for a while. My friend who owns a shop just bought a Kiaro so he prints them for me now. Your best bet is to find a shop that does their own juice (with nice labels) and see if they print them, and see if they offer printing service. If not, there are places like sillytoast.com, they will print them and have decent rates
Social Media Marketing - I don't have anything good for you here. I don't really deal a whole lot with this
Supply ordering - start out with what works for you. TFA has great wholesale pricing, as does FA. Capella really sucks, I just ordered 4oz bottles, check places like BCV and sometimes Ecigexpress, they often have 4oz for under the $20 price from Capella. Unfortunately Capella wholesale sucks until you get to gallons, and even then its not so great. Flavor West and Flavorah are also easy to get direct from in quantity. So until you need gallons, get liters (FA), 4oz (CAP), 16 or 32oz (TFA/FW/FLV)
Like others have mentioned, you can always mix up batches of concentrate (all the flavors combined) and then just have to add pg/vg/nic. You can also mix up a batch of 0 and 24 (or 18) and combine to make the nic str you need. I normally have gallons of 0, and 3 of everything, and 6 of top sellers so they are ready to go, and add nic to 0 for anything else in batches as needed.
I mentioned it above, but will repeat in case you just see this in your inbox. I have a logo, marketing and media materials, a website and labels designed. I'm printing them in my office, my concern is a more solid sticker style where the ink won't run when hit with any liquid. There must be a solution I can do at home that is more effective than printing the label, applying clear sticker on top to waterproof. It's just a long way to get to the end.
The good news is, I use very little capella stuff. I'm mostly FA, TFA, and a few LA, one capella concentrate is heavy in one mix, but even ordering from whoever is cheapest for 4oz between 1stop, ecigex, and wizard labs my costs work, I'm just thinking I can get the cost slightly lower if I go direct - it sounds like I can.
I do already premix my flavor base, that's working well. Mixing is the easiest part of the whole process.
I'm getting my company up and going as we speak.
A Lot of pressure, stress, Ideas etc. but man am I excited lol.
Currently in that boat. Just setup the llc not to long ago, just got my iso 8 clean room and lab. Working on insurance and labels right now. Soon to get final launch recipes in place. Also working on making sure my labels are ready and working on a marketing strategy as we speak. We start shooting some photos and videos for ads some time later this year. I wanted to launch this year for the holidays but my seed investor is taking their sweet time to transfer the funds.
If you have any questions please feel free take pm me. I'll say this thing. To anyone looking to start a liquid or vape company. COVER YOUR ASS!!!!! this industry has not been out long enough and hasn't had enough research of the long term effects. It's a industry that people put into their bodies. It's also a industry where poison(nicotine) is mixed into the liquids. Again cover your ass. Lawyer lawyer lawyer lawyer lawyer insurance insurance insurance insurance!!! Make sure you remove all liability from you. Hire a overseas lawyer if you must to make up a terms and conditions page for your site. Also, make sure your forming a limited liability company not a doing business as. Remove your money off the table.
I can't picture someone purchasing an iso 8 before having product liability or a labeling solutions. Unless you have a non certified room with one hepa... in that case I suppose you can call it whatever you want
I am having difficulty procuring a liability insurer. Is there any way to pass along information to me?
Insurance will be a killer either way you look at it. Your cheapest will be around 4k a year. Roughly 350 a month. I will pm you more info once I get home. You can do a Google search for eliquid insurance. Pretty much what I did. My problem is they are afraid of my other company which is right next door. You can see from my username what industry we are in.
Makes sense. 4k is not as bad as the 10 - 15k I have been quoted. If I can get it down to 350, that might be doable. Harsh, but still doable. I want to get my brand into stores, but I need that liability first. Any info you can get me would be greatly appreciated.
If anyone here needs help with graphic or web design, I'm working with a couple of other redditors now, and I offer really good rates. I won't be ready to take anyone new until October, but I'd be happy to help you guys out if you can wait until then.
hey, Silver Beetle Juice. Check me out on facebook and instagram.
Also I would love to collab, as I sometimes feel my juice is not quite "on par" with the locals around me and I'm not quite sure what I do different. I've talked to other more popular juice makers in my area and we mix in the same way, but theirs turns out better. Only thing we don't exchange is flavor brands
You have G-chat or aim, or skype of something? I'd love to chat for a few.
I do not have Skype in 2015 believe it or not. G-chat, is that on google? Can I use it on my phone?
I'm actually fine with Facebook if you're comfortable with that haha.
Im at the VERY beginning, we got enough $ together to do a run of about 40 bottles of 1 flavor. we are selling (at least some of) those, and launching a second flavor (that even better!)
Currently working on figuring out the labeling (we have logo and background, just need the warning and nic levels, and printing)
as soon as possible we are getting the LLC and then I will start blasting social media... but, I have to make sure we can keep it at a level where we can produce the juice at a good pace for orders... for now
any chance we could have a subreddit specifically for this type of thing? that would be amazing!
I'm just getting started as well. I purchased my labels from onlinelabels. com - they are a waterproof (weatherproof) silver foil for use on laser printers only. They come in other colors besides silver. The ordering qty was a little high, but it's possible to manually enter a lower quantity. This is really helpful if you're ordering multiple sizes, as I did.
I'm hoping these will work; I'm still developing my logo. I'm not interested in selling bottles with drippy labels, either. Nothing screams "made in my kitchen" like crappy labeling.